


Hange's Totems

by alcatrazisgod



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dark Comedy, Drug Abuse, Drug Use, F/M, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Surrealism, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:25:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6216205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcatrazisgod/pseuds/alcatrazisgod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After finding a rare species of mushroom growing in her backyard, Hange discovers that they can be used to leap from one world to the next. The further Hange delves down this mental rabbit hole, the harder it becomes to leave this crazy dreamworld. All the while, Eren Yeager begins to wonder if his girlfriend has lost all sense of reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shadow People

**Author's Note:**

> I have a few things to say before this thing actually starts rolling. To begin with, this is an AU story, but I covered that in the summary. Secondly, this first chapter is extremely slow. Unless you find Hange's behavior entertaining then you're gonna have a bad time. That's why I published two chapters at once.
> 
> Now, as far as the AU is concerned, I've left this world intentionally ambiguous. It's obviously not earth and I don't really give a time period so keep in mind that it's all intentional on my part. This was just one of the many plot choices I went along with.
> 
> You might also notice that Eren, and maybe a few other people are a little OOC. I couldn't get around that. There aren't any titans around to eat people so everyone is kind of chill and relaxed in this story. I couldn't have Eren super pissed off and full of 'angst' for no reason, so I kind of have to work with this format.
> 
> Another thing I would like to go over is the pairing. I selected this at random when I was doing research on traffic for this part of the sight, and among other things to collect statistics for the fandom. That's all boring and irrelevant information, though. However, I noticed that this pairing was practically non-existent. For a while, I was convinced I might be the only person to be writing a story with Hange and Eren involved in such a way. It took me a couple of weeks of going through page after page and I finally found one thing. One story, and a challenge on the 'Attack on Titan' section that went nowhere. (Side Note: I have no idea why this show has two separate sections on the site, but whatever.)
> 
> Maybe I just missed a few things, but as far as I can tell, this pairing is extremely rare and I decided to go with it so that this story could be even more unique. That brings up one more point I need to make about this story.
> 
> Unless you really like surrealist imagery, then this story is not for you. I also wouldn't recommend reading this if you are either tired or unable to properly think because this story does involve a lot of contemplation on the reader's part. There isn't much I'm going to explain to you in the early chapters, so you'll be left with the freedom of coming up with your own theories as to what is going on here.
> 
> With all of that out of the way, I present the first surrealist story I've written in a long time, Hange's Totems. Or by its full title, Hange's Totems and the Mushroom God. I hope you all enjoy this crazy little story, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts, critiques, and theories as to what's going on here.

Little Hange Zoë sat on a chair singled out in a corner of her living room. At that point in time, her thick elliptical glasses looked as if they were always about to fall right off her face. While her parents stood off in the background, she kept her 'four eyes' locked on the boy sitting on the other side of the room. A boy with a mop of brown hair and vibrant green eyes. A red scarf could be seen around his neck and covered half of his face.

In front of her stood a grown man who looked extremely similar to the boy across the room. He had a head of dark brown hair and a set of gray eyes to match. He wore a pair of circular glasses and a brown suit by the likes of which her family could only dream of affording in this lifetime.

She kept silent and studied every move the boy made, although, that was not exactly difficult to do on account of his lack of movement. After a few more minutes of this undying silence, the man in front of her spoke out.

"All done," he kindly stated. "You were better behaved than most of my adult patients. Just be sure to let your parents know if you feel sick to your stomach again, but you should be better in a couple of days as long as you take your medicine, and I'm sure my son would love to have playmate when you're feeling better. So, feel free to pay us a visit anytime."

"No, I wouldn't," the boy argued from afar.

The doctor instantly glanced over his shoulder with a stern scold on his face. " _Eren_ ," he snapped in order to quiet the boy down. Dr. Grisha Yeager then let out a long defeated sigh and turned back only to see that Hange had picked up one of his medical tools off the ground which must have fallen out of his bag, or perhaps he simply forgot to grab it. She held it up for him to reclaim.

"What is this thing," she asked in a puzzled tone of voice.

Grisha smiled once again, completely forgetting his son's minor outburst. The object in question was a familiar wooden rod with an obsidian colored stone smoothly carved into the shape of a triangle, attached to the end of it. "That's a reflex hammer," he informed but did not immediately take it from her. "I normally use it during basic checkups. You tap someone on the knee with it and they will kick out their foot in response."

Out of curiosity, Hange looked to her legs before tapping her right knee with the hammer. Her frown remained permanently plastered to her face during this process when the disappointing result that her leg was not about to move, made itself readily apparent to her. "It doesn't work," she quietly proclaimed.

"You're doing it wrong," Eren's voice abruptly interjected from afar. Hange averted her attention towards him. "You have to do it while you're sitting down," he insisted.

Grisha nodded his head to confirm that this was the case. As the silence reclaimed the room once again, Hange exchanged confused glances between Grisha and Eren before she eventually came up with an idea. While holding the hammer tightly in her hands, she jogged over to Eren's location with a flat expression that was almost unreadable. She stopped directly in front of him and attempted to tap him on the knee, but once again, nothing happened.

"Now, you're not doing it hard enough," Eren sighed. He then closed his eyes in disapproval. At least now he knew this girl should never grow up to be a doctor.

Hange quickly learned from this error as well, and followed his advice for a second time. However, this time she took it a little too seriously, but Eren had no time to notice the damage he had already caused.

Without a single word of warning, Hange lifted the hammer in the air as high as her short arms could possibly reach. She then brought the tool down upon Eren's knee with all her might. As soon as the hammer connected with Eren's knee, everyone in the room could hear a loud cracking sound. Eren promptly shouted in agony and fell to the floor at her feet.

Hange tensed up in fear, already well aware that she had done something terribly bad. Grisha quickly ran over to his fallen son to inspect whatever potential injury Hange had caused. She remained frozen in place while listening to both her mother and father shouting at her from behind.

It was on that day when her entire life seemed to change. Hange looked to the hammer in awe. While it did not work the way Grisha and Eren claimed, she knew that was only due to her own error. However, the idea of a simple tool could effect the human body and cause a leg to jolt, or in Eren's case, causing him to reel in pain at a shattered knee cap; was so fascinating and darkly intriguing to her.

On that day, she found a love for these subjects. Medicine did not capture her interest at all, but biology was a completely different story. Ironically, it was also on that very day when Hange made a new and very special friend.

* * *

Seven years would pass, and Hange's appearance had changed dramatically. She still had that same pair of glasses to accommodate for her poor eyesight. Her messy brown hair was only kept in line by a lone band that held it in a ponytail. The place she always called home, once brimming with light and sound, was now empty and void of all life apart from herself. Even during midday when the sun was highest in the sky, her home was extremely dark. She had gone out of her way to bored up most of the windows in her house or block them with the darkest curtains she could find.

She was fast asleep with her head on the table directly adjacent to her bed. Her head and arms occupied what little free space remained on her otherwise cluttered work space. A majority of the space of the desk could be seen on Hange's right. However, this was mostly covered by a large amount of sharp tools used for carving into wood. A number of different paintbrushes, and oddly enough, a small log which had been peeled of all its bark.

This strange object was carved from a freshly acquired log after the bark and the outer layers of wood to create an object of a much smoother shape and surface. Other than that, it seemed to be nothing but another hunk of wood. Nothing else had been done to this piece of wood. Although, it was obvious that Hange had plans to decorate it in the future with all of the tools at her disposal.

The room remained motionless for only a few more minutes until Hange abruptly forced herself awake. She sat upright in her chair and hesitantly scanned the surface of the table for her glasses. She found them without much of a hassle and picked them up from their spot on top of a pile of books before returning them to their rightful place over her tired eyes. Hange allowed her head to fall back as she examined the dark ceiling above. She attempted to relax without falling back to sleep, but that would prove unsuccessful when she made another abrupt movement.

Hange suddenly jumped out of her chair like she had just thrown aside her own exhaustion when her mind began to fully function properly. She looked towards the analogue clock on her wall and gasped at the time. " _Finally_ ," she cheered, this being the first word spoken on her property in the past 40 or so hours. Her brown eyes widening with that same look of psychotic joy she always felt when she knew something interesting was about to happen.

"It's been 12 hours," she frantically shouted aloud. Hange clasped her hands together and narrowed her eyes in an almost greedy way. "12 hours and I'm not dead or lying unconscious in a puddle of my own blood, vomit, _and_ excrement! This is truly remarkable! It's time for the next trial!"

Hange's lust for knowledge caused her to bolt out the closed door to her bedroom. She threw her door open and made her way through her messy home. Hange rushed through a narrow corridor which led to both the small room which she herself had converted into a place for her to rest, and the empty bedroom that once belonged to her parents, but that door had not been opened in a very long time.

She quickly found her way to the only means of properly entering and exiting the house. Hange unlocked the front door in a panic. Acting as if her house was on fire and she was in desperate need to escape, she pushed the door open and ran outside.

The front lawn was about as well looked after as the interior of her house, in other words, not at all. Crabgrass and vines had claimed both the once vibrant yard and outer walls of the house alike. There were no other structures around her property. The only sign of civilization was a narrow dirt road which she normally took when she wanted to visit the Yeager family in town.

Hange eventually reached her backyard which was arguably in worse condition than the front. The gray skies above only completed this picture of solitude. However, there was one thing that easily caught Hange's eye. The same thing she was looking for. The only aspect of her property that had any real color other than the standard dark green of the forest around her or the ugly brown that coated her home.

She gleefully skipped over to a small cluster of mushrooms located just next to the cheaply crafted foundation of her house. Each of these mushrooms looked identical in shape and color, but came all different sizes. Some of them were small, about five of them were the size of Hange's hand, but the one in the center was well on its way to being larger than her head. Each of them were colored a bright red towards the center of the stereotypical caps each of these mushrooms had atop their stems. The very center of the caps were colored an ominous sky blue while the outer area was given a deep shade of red. The stems of the mushrooms, however, were all blue.

A freakish smile broke out across her face once again. Hange wasted no time selecting the mushroom she wished to run through this 'new trial.' She plucked the smallest one she could find, out from the ground, and headed back inside with the brightly colored fungus in hand. She turned it over to reveal the red and blue gills on the underside of the mushroom that matched the pattern on the cap.

With glee filling her twisted little heart, Hange stood up and ran as fast as she possibly could back inside her house before tightly closing the door behind herself.

The first thing she did was take the mushroom to her kitchen which was probably the cleanest part of the entire house. Not because Hange regularly used the kitchen to cook and always kept the place containing all of her food as spotless as possible, but because she never bothered utilizing her kitchen.

Layer upon layer of dust blanketed every surface in the room. The few dishes her family had, along with whatever silverware they managed to get a hold of had not been touched in no less than the better half of a decade. Even the sink was virtually unused and as such, developed a nice collection of dust and probably a few other horrors Hange failed to notice.

This crazed young woman brought the ominously colored decomposer to the sink and held it underneath the faucet. She turned on the water and flinched once it warmed up to the point where she could barely stand it. None of the less, she kept the mushroom under the water for several seconds while her hands turned a bright red. After she was certain the mushroom was clean and whatever horrible microorganisms might be festering on it were most assuredly dead thanks to the steaming water; she turned the faucet off and allowed a large portion of the dust in the sink around the drain to flow down the drain.

"Alright, you," Hange announced. A look of pride swept across her face. She held up the newly acquired fungus far above her head. The vivid colors which are meant to serve as a well deserved warning to any animal stupid enough to eat it reflected off the surface of her thick glasses. "I spent almost two days without food because of you. Three different trials of me taking small samples of you for consumption. You and only you. I haven't died yet so you're obviously edible... _I hope_."

With her speech given, Hange shoved the mushroom in her mouth. Not a second thought about this rather dumb decision crossed her mind. After all, it was all for science. That, and she was extremely hungry.

The mushroom itself barely had any flavor. It tasted nothing like the solid gray ones Grisha and Eren would occasionally serve when she went to have dinner at the Yeager home. She let out a sigh and walked out of the kitchen after it was all said and done.

Hange reentered the living room and took a seat on the same sofa Eren was sitting on when she broke his knee. She laid down and rested her head against one of the arms of the sofa. The room then fell silent once again. A ghostly tomb-like silence that came almost as quickly as it was driven out every time Hange opened her mouth to say something. She had great trouble relaxing. Her stomach was still devoid of anything other than that small mushroom which was nowhere near enough to compensate for her lack of food for the past two days.

Regardless of the fact that she worked up the courage to eat one of those things at long last, she still did not want to eat anything else for at least a few more hours. Until then, Hange tried to take her mind off of her malnourished state of being and tried her best to think about something else. Little did she know, how easy that would be.

As Hange laid there, she seemed to lose track of how much time began flowing by without her doing a thing about it. She only intended to stay their for about five minutes, but that five minutes spiraled into fifteen before she could process it. Hange was still rather tired after waking her self up just to eat that mushroom. She was halfway anticipating to vomit it back up, still convinced even after her trials that there might be some form of toxicity to it, but this did not happen. Of course, just because no blight came her way, that did not mean nothing changed.

* * *

Thirty more minutes disappeared from the day and Hange still found herself laying on the couch. She had nothing better to do now. It was only after so much time had passed her by when she started noticing something drawing her attention from the very corner of her eye. She darted her head toward the hall that would normally lead to her bedroom. Astonishingly, there was nothing of interest in that direction.

Hange blinked in confusion. She sighed after coming to the obvious conclusion that she was just seeing things. Hange attempted to look away from the hallway only to be distracted yet again by whatever was going on in that direction. She saw another shadow move right when she looked away. At that point, Hange sat up and glared down the hall.

Once again, nothing in the room was actually moving apart from Hange herself. She did not turn away so quickly this time. She removed her glasses only briefly and squinted her eyes to see if she could find anything wrong with them, be it a smudge or stain of some sort. Anything at all that might indicate what was causing her to see these strange moving shadows.

As she halfway predicted, this was not the case. Her glasses were spotless. There was not a single thing wrong with them. Hange placed her glasses back over her eyes and scanned the living room once more.

"Weird," she thought aloud. Hange then stood up and began searching her house as if she knew something was in here with her. Perhaps an animal had found it's way into her house, but Hange could never be sure in this forsaken laboratory she called a 'home.'

* * *

Eren followed his father down a narrow path through a town which used to be rather busy during this time of day, but now, they appeared to be the only people in the area. The two of them did not seem to change at all over the course of the past few years. Eren had grown dramatically, but he still kept the same facial features, hair, and eye color that he always had.

He carried a large basket and listened to the detailed instructions his father gave him while they walked down this lonely path of sand. Grisha kept his eyes locked on a short list he had written out prior to leaving the house. Every time Grisha read off an item on the list, Eren would always reply with a firm, " _Check!_ "

"Well, if you insist we've got everything, then we might as well head home," Grisha promptly announced.

Eren quietly nodded his head. It was not the best means of illustrating that he agreed with Grisha's statement due to his father having his back turned, but Grisha seemed content with his son's silence.

After a brief moment of peaceful walking, Grisha abruptly halted his stride which naturally caused Eren to do the same. He did not turn around to confront his son, but instead, kept his eyes on the abandoned road ahead.

" _Actually_ ," Grisha stated, confirming to Eren that he had changed his mind over the course of the past two seconds. "On second thought, why don't you stop by Hange's house. We haven't heard from her in a couple of days. She always comes by for dinner, but not at all, recently. We should at least make sure she's still alive out there."

Grisha then turned back to Eren and took the basket out of his hands. "I'll just take this back for you. Go and check on her, at least. Knowing that girl, there's no telling what could have happened to her."

Eren let out a groan at the mere thought of having to walk all the way out to Hange's place just to make sure one of her insane experiments did not kill her in the process. "Alright, fine. But why do we need all of this stuff? You still haven't explained that?"

Grisha perked up in astonishment when he was reminded of the fact that he had yet to elaborate on the goal of this shopping trip. "Right. Later on tonight, I need to leave and run a few errands. If all goes well, then I should return by midday on Friday. That's only two days away so all of this will be enough to hold you over until I get back, wouldn't you agree?"

"Sure," Eren replied without a hint of concern in his voice. "Well, I guess I'll go check on Hange, then. See you later."

The two of them then promptly parted ways from that point on.

* * *

Eren made his way through town and was ultimately content to keep moving until he came to Hange's place, and would otherwise stop for nothing. However, once he reached a long treeline which marked the southern edge of town; Eren spotted an all too familiar face sitting beside the trunk of a random tree. The young man had blond hair and blue eyes. He was rather short in comparison to Eren but was exactly the same age-wise.

"Armin," Eren called out in shock. He furrowed a brow at the young man sitting afar. It was only then when Armin looked up to see his long time friend. The lad slightly grinned at the sight of such a familiar face.

Armin Arlert was one of the few people left in this town, and aside from Hange, he was the only person the Yeager family interacted with on a daily basis. Armin stood up and gave Eren a friendly wave. "I wasn't expecting to run into you, today," Armin muttered.

"What are you doing out here," Eren questioned. While it was not exactly uncommon for him to find Armin by himself, Eren rarely ever saw him in this area of town.

"I was just taking a walk," Armin insisted casually. "I decided to stop and take a break here. What about you? Although, I can guess you're probably going to see Hange, right?"

Eren nodded his head at the extremely accurate guess. "Yeah. That's really the only thing of interest out here. I was just going to check on her. Do you wanna come along?"

Armin immediately agreed and just like that, Eren had gained a plus one on his little excursion through the forest.

* * *

About a mile away from all of this, Hange kept herself locked away in her dark abode. For whatever strange reason she had to justify it; she was on her hands and knees with her eyes locked on a small ant climbing down the wall. She tilted her head in the most peculiar of ways. She stared at this ant as if it were about to preform the most breathtaking stunt imaginable. An action no mere mortal has ever witnessed.

Of course, nothing like this ever happened. The carpenter ant eventually started making its way to the base of her wall. Upon seeing this, Hange smashed the ant with her thumb before it was able to make its escape.

With nothing else to examine for no clear rhyme or reason, Hange stood upright and slowly scanned her surroundings. She took a defensive step back after noticing yet another one of those shadows dancing around just out of the corner of her eye.

She turned to her right only to find nothing but another blank wall in front of her. These shadows were becoming more and more frustrating for this out-world hitcher. Just when Hange was about to pull her own hair out as a result of the sheer annoyance brought on by these elusive shadows, she practically jumped out of her skin when she heard a knock on the door behind her.

Hange did not instantly open it to see who had come to visit her. In reality, only a select few people ever bothered coming out this way and it was debatable if any outsiders knew there was a house in this part of the woods. Anyone who may have seen it could safely assume it to be abandoned due to the state it was in.

Regardless of the lack of suspicion this situation warranted, Hange approached the door with absolute caution. She ducked down and slowly crept up forward as if she were attempting to take cover from an unseen enemy. Her eyes bulged from behind her glasses as they always did whenever she was either on the verge of learning something new or simply acting out of the ordinary for the mere purpose of behaving strangely.

Hange threw the door open as soon as she was in range and shot a deadly glare to whomever dared to defile her sacred grounds. Her expression softened as soon as she noticed who it was that had come to visit her. Just a few feet away from her stood someone she had no trouble identifying as Eren Yeager. For a split second, Hange averted her eyes to the blond boy standing behind him. She could not recognize him right off the bat.

"Hey... Hange," Eren stuttered as he took a step away from her. That odd look in his girlfriend's eyes never failed to creep him out, even after knowing her for so long. "Are you okay out here," he questioned. He originally did not intend to ask this, but he could not resist after noticing her eyes were just a little too abnormal, even for a person like Hange. "You don't look so good. You're eyes are fully dilated."

"Huh," Hange asked in response. She leaned in just a little too close to Eren and stared him down for a lengthy interval of time. "I feel fine. What do you want?"

Eren attempted his best to lean away and fight back the blush in his cheeks. "Well, I just wanted to come check on you," he casually admitted. "We haven't seen you in a couple days and I wanted to make sure you were still alive and well." He looked away and scratched his head at the shame of actually having to say this to someone, but in this instance, there was no other way to say it.

Hange crept her way out of the shadows of her home and stepped out in front of the open doorway. She quickly shut the door behind herself and placed her back against the wooden surface as if she were attempting to hide something. Out of all the strange things going on in this little scene, that seemed to be the least interesting action taken by her. She was always up to something questionable, that much had become increasingly more apparent to Eren over the course of the past few years.

"As you can see, I'm just fine," Hange loudly repeated. Her tone abruptly shifted to a more cheerful and overly excited one. The voice both Eren and Armin had become consistently familiar with. "But I'm super busy right now, and I need to return to my experiment," she proclaimed, this statement only halfway being grounded in reality.

"Yeah, whatever you say," Eren sighed. "I'll be leaving now."

He turned away, content with the mere fact that she had obviously not killed herself in one of those horrific experiments as of yet, but just when he was about to walk away, Hange stopped the duo.

"Who are you?"

Eren let out a sigh after figuring out what was causing this confusion on Hange's end. He rolled his eyes at her with a look of annoyance. "That's Armin," he reminded. "You've known him almost as long as you've known me! How do you always manage to forget about him?"

"Oh, right! Sorry Arnold," Hange remarked as she comically shut her eyes and ran her right hand through her hair in recollection.

Armin groaned at her failure to pronounce his name correctly. " _Armin_ ," he promptly corrected.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Hange repeatedly stated and brushed him away dismissively. She reached for the doorknob, eager to go back inside until a rather oppressing thought manifested in her mind. It forced her to freeze in place right then and there.

She called out and once again, this caused Eren and Armin to delay their departure from her property. "Oh! Eren! Do you mind if I come over for dinner tonight?"

"Don't know why you're asking," Eren remarked flatly. "You've always been come by whenever you want, but sure. Go ahead. I'll see you tonight."

Hange waved the two away and watched as they went down the same path they came from. She waited until they were well out of her sight before she slipped back into her house and pushed the door closed with her back. She took a defensive stance once she was inside, acting as if she were waiting for something to lunge at her.

The peculiar girl abruptly knelt down after a few moments of silence had passed. For no apparent reason, she preformed a series of somersaults before practically throwing herself against the wall just to the side of the lone hallway which connected the living room to the back area of her house. Surprisingly, she did not lose her glasses in the process.

Hange kept low and quietly made her way back to her bedroom. She crept into the open room only to immediately close the door upon entry.

She payed careful attention to every detail in front of her. The unmade bed on one side of the room was still exactly the same as she had left it. No shadow people could be seen in that direction, nor was there anything of interest at her desk aside from that strange wooden sculpture she was working on. She had several of these already completed, but she rarely ever worked on them. Most of her time was usually spent on learning new things. Only during rare moments in her free time, did she resume her work on these 'totems.'

She initially began her work on this latest 'totem' about a month ago, but had yet to pick it back up and finish the job. It was clear, even to her that she was feeling a little out of it and decided to take a seat at her desk. The same place where it all began.

Hange moved a few books out of the way including her journal which she occasionally jotted down random notes taken from whatever unspeakable experiments she was working on at any given time. She stared at it for a few moments. While she appeared to be debating whether or not to open it up, in reality, Hange merely blacked out. Eventually a thought finally found its way into her conscious mind.

"What if it were to gain the ability to think for itself," Hange thought aloud. Just as quickly as that insane idea came to her, it left her mind completely. She shook off the cobwebs manifesting in her brain and returned her attention to the totem.

"Hmm," she contemplated as she repeatedly tilted her head to the left and then to the right, over and over again, without any clear purpose. "I think I'll give you an angry face!" That crazy little smile reclaimed its rightful place on Hange's face when her subconscious mind fully processed this thought. It almost seemed to be a few seconds behind her consciousness. "Yeah, a really mean and scary face for you!"

With that said, Hange began feverishly working on the next totem that would soon be added to her little collection.


	2. The Mushroom God

Hange woke up, face down in a patch of grass. The disorientated woman pushed herself away from the ground in shock. She attempted to force herself off the ground, but this did not go as planned. She was able to lift her head up a few more inches but she almost instantly felt it smash into a wooden beam.

"Ow," Hange groaned in frustration. Oddly enough, she did not feel any discomfort. Only what she considered to be a 'theoretical pain.' She allowed herself to fall back down to the ground. Her glasses bounced off as soon as her head hit the ground. "What is that," she tiredly asked herself as she reached to pick up her glasses. She carefully placed the hooks of her glasses around her ears and moved her hand out of the way.

The first thing she noticed was a strange triangular prism sitting in front of her. From what she could tell at this awkward angle, she was underneath some sort of large object due to the rectangular shadow cast around the grass near her. However, that shadow became the least of her worries as soon as her eyes rested upon this pyramid.

The pyramid was probably only about a foot tall. It was covered in a solid red coat of paint and almost looked to be made entirely of plastic. On the front side of the pyramid was a pair of living human lips. It was only when she noticed them that the pyramid began laughing at her. It giggled for no apparent reason, and while this did attract Hange's attention, she did not seem fazed by this demented object.

Hange reached forward and pushed it out of the way before sliding herself out from underneath whatever obstacle was preventing her from standing up. She was finally able to sit upright once she had moved out of that peculiar shade. She turned to her right and let out an astonished gasp at the sight of her own bed sitting in the middle of a grassy field.

She grabbed onto the sheets and pulled herself up. Hange then leaned over the bed and noticed yet another strange shape. This was not a prism of any sort, but a small green cube no larger than the palm of her hand. It sat upon her unorganized sheets. For a moment, Hange thought she was looking at a standard cube, but even that was not true.

The cube abruptly sprouted a full set of thin black spider legs and stood upon on her bed. Before Hange had time to react to this insane transformation, a small red parachute sprung from the top face of the cube and sent this alien object flying off into the sky.

Hange curiously followed the skyward path of the cube with her eyes as best as she could, but it eventually flew into a cluster of low clouds and disappeared. She quickly lost interest in that enigmatic box when she noticed just how close to the ground those clouds were.

The more she scanned the environment around her, the faster she figured out that she was in a totally different world. All around her was nothing more than a blue sky. Strange floating rocks and blocks of land could be seen in the distance. She looked down and spotted a cliff a few yards past her bed which only proved that the very land she stood on, was floating in the sky. A world of sky islands.

Some of the islands on the horizon had structures built upon them. Vines and other forms of overgrowth appeared to have reclaimed these buildings long ago. Wooden bridges connected some of these islands together, while others floated in the sky all by themselves. Some of them were mere boulders, while others had their own ecosystems.

Despite all of the strangeness in this world. Regardless Hange's mass knowledge of physics picking at her and demanding an answer to why this illogical world is possible, there was something else that eventually caught her attention. Something far less easy to rationalize than what she had already seen.

Hange slowly turned around and gazed upon a massive abomination hovering just to the left of her bed. It cast a shadow over half of the entire island and floated only about two feet above the surface.

It was a massive human brain with two huge blue eyes attached to it by a set of thick blood vessels. Hange did not make any sudden movements. While she would probably be jumping up and down with excitement by this point due to this insane discovery, she was not showing any sign of emotion. She simply stared at this aberration until it finally spoke to her.

The Brain's voice produced an unexplained echo. It did not come from any one direction in particular. Instead, it felt to Hange as if it were speaking to her from all sides. "You may now see the Mushroom God," the Brain proclaimed sternly. "He exists... all the way down!"

This statement was incredibly vague, but Hange knew exactly what it was suppose to mean. She turned to the western edge of the island without questioning the Brain's peculiar choice of wording. She took notice into a wooden bridge held up with rotting planks, brown ropes, and a series of thin support beams that kept the whole thing together.

Hange slowly marched on without saying a word. She stepped on the bridge, but she quickly halted her stride just to take a look at something which caught her attention from the corner of her eye. Hanger looked to the wooden poll on her left. There was a small ball on each of the support beams.

As soon as her gaze landed upon this orb, the supposed wooden surface slid apart, revealing a living human eye. At that very moment, the different spheres on top of each post did the exact same. All of them opening their wooden eyelids to catch a glimpse of who had come to travel across 'their' bridge.

After seeing this, Hange simply turned away and headed off down this spiraling bridge. In fact, due to the shape, Hange could tell this was more of a downward path than a 'bridge.' None of the less, she made her way to the base of this path which led her straight to the entrance of a cave underneath the surface of this sky island.

She hesitated for a brief moment while she cautiously observed something moving in the darkness beyond. "Who's there," she questioned nonchalantly, not having a care in the world at this point.

The person, or rather the creature beyond responded to her question by simply revealing itself to her. A five foot tall humanoid mushroom stepped out of the cave's dark entrance. The creature's skin was colored a deep purple. Its body was made of the same material that composed the flesh of an average mushroom.

Its set of oddly shaped limbs even resembled a mushroom's stem. This monster had no head, just an overgrown mushroom cap. However, regardless of not having a face to hide, the creature wore a primitive mask over its face. It held a cheaply crafted spear in its right hand, but did not appear to be making any aggressive movements in Hange's direction.

Zoë stared this creature down without saying anything at all. Then again, this was probably the only time she truly felt she needed to say nothing. She almost got a sense that this being had no concept of communication.

The Brain had also already stated that she needed to speak to the 'Mushroom God.' This thing looked more like a guard to her than a god. Instead of speaking out, she merely waited for this strange monster to step out of her way.

It would take about five or so minutes but this guardian of the cave would do exactly what she desired. It moved out of her way and did not attempt to delay her any longer. Hange grinned in satisfaction, but this smile lasted for just a few seconds before it faded once again. She gave the mushroom soldier a thankful nod of her head and moved on.

It was not very difficult to navigate through the cave. Her eyes easily adjusted to the darkness and the wide cavern moved in a straight line. Hange soon found her way to the next questionable scene with very little trouble trouble.

She came to a stop just after making her way to an enormous underground chamber. The chamber was so massive, she could not help but scratch her head at the thought of how this could all possibly fit under the surface of the rather small floating island she woke up on.

A tiled platform extended far out into the dark chamber. As she scanned this path, Hange took note into the literal nothingness that surrounded it. This appeared to be the only solid surface in the entire chamber. She looked to both her right and her left yet she saw nothing more than a black void filled with nighttime stars. It was definitely obvious to her now that she was in an entirely different world.

Two separate rows of large boxes floated high above either side of the path. Hange could hear an extremely faint sound coming from them. There must be something alive inside, but that creepy thought was swiftly pushed to the back of her mind.

At the end of the path was a massive purple throne. A royal structure which was ironically so obvious that Hange was able to figure out who exactly was sitting in it despite how alien the entire scene was to her. A creature almost identical to the one at the entrance to the cave sat on this organic throne.

A purple monstrosity with the body of a man and head of a mushroom. The primary difference was a golden crown sitting atop the cap of this enigma of a creature rather than a mask over its nonexistent face, and a bejeweled scepter in place of a war ready spear.

Three towering mushrooms stood behind the throne. They stood perfectly still and did not seem to be animate in the same sense as the 'mushroom people' Hange had discovered.

Hange took a defensive step backwards when, out of nowhere, a bloodcurdling scream sounded off from throughout the cavern. The Mushroom God did not react at all, and merely watched as Hange covered her ears in a desperate attempt to prevent them from exploding.

"Will it spin," the Mushroom God inquired. His voice came with that same echoing tone Hange had experienced when speaking with the Brain. She could not place where this voice came from. The only thing she was able to safely figure out was that its source was indeed the entity on the throne before her, but that scream was still the one thing she focused on. It subsided by the time the Mushroom God spoke, yet was able to draw Hange's attention well away from the throne and back up to the lines of boxes floating a good fifty yards above her.

Each of the boxes simultaneously opened up without any outside assistance. As soon as they were opened, a series of human bodies fell halfway out after being freed from their confines. Hange could only see the upper torsos of these people, and from what she could tell, they were all still alive but unresponsive to their environment. They simply hung out of the boxes but were unable to actually fall free from them.

Hange must have sat there for a good fifteen minutes staring at the suspended bodies. Her mind fell blank, although, not much was going on in her head up until this point to begin with. However, the voice of the Mushroom God was able to quickly break her out of her trance.

" _That way_ ," he ordered flatly and pointed off to the left.

Hange turned in the desired direction and watched with intrigue as a path of tiles materialized out of nowhere and led off into the darkness. She slowly glanced back to the monster on the throne who said nothing else. It appeared to have given her all the information it was willing to part her with for now.

There was nothing left to do, but follow this path, or at least nothing that Hange felt like doing. There was not much in this void that surrounded the throne, and it was obvious she was not about to gain anything else from being here. With all of that in mind, Hange moved forward onto this new path and followed it to wherever it desired to take her.

* * *

She must have walked along that empty path for well over half an hour and yet there was still no end in sight. The only thing which happened on this walk that could be considered 'interesting' was that at one point the texture of this ethereal bridge randomly changed from tiled concrete to a series of aging wooden planks. Hange felt as if she were walking on an everlasting dock that was leading her straight to the center of an ocean of darkness.

Just when she was about to give up and turn around, Hange perked up at the sight of a light. A single white light far down the path. Excitement bubbled up inside her after seeing something different for once. Something aside from a dark void that was occasionally broken up by a cluster of stars far overhead.

At first, Hange bolted off in the direction of the light but she slowed down when she realized that running would ironically only make the situation worse. That light was still extremely far away. Before she tired herself out, she slowed down to the pace of a casual stroll. It would take a considerable amount of time before she was even able to see the source of this light, but once her eyes were able to focus on the light, she found herself both extremely curious and horribly disappointed.

There was no exit to this endless tunnel, or at least not from what she could see. A small building stood at the very end of this extensive dock. Regardless of how conflicted Hange felt about a rundown building being the nearest source of light, she made her way to it with nothing better to do with her time in this insane dreamworld.

She came to a stop just before entering this suspicious property. She examined the solid white walls crafted from massive industrial cinder blocks. It looked like some sort of public restroom. It had an opening which led to a small hall with two gender labeled doors on either side. Hange groaned in frustration, her voice being the one thing that was able to penetrate this uncanny silence aside from the ominous buzzing sound coming from the lone light above the entrance to the restrooms.

"This is the one thing I find and I don't even need to go to the bathroom," she yelled to an audience consisting of no one.

Of course, shouting to the heavens did not solve anything. Hange regained control of herself and marched on towards the correctly labeled door. Surely there was something of interest inside. There must be something she could use to progress onward. That creature would have no reason to send her to such a useless place.

In many ways, Hange would be proven correct in this train of thought. She opened the door to the restroom and at first glance, it was a rather standard location. A line of closed off stalls could be seen on the right while a separate row of about three sinks and three mirrors were attached to the left wall. It was fairly well lit aside from a few flickering lights every now and then.

An unnatural noise bounced off the walls of this bathroom that probably had not been used or even entered in a very long time. The sound of someone gurgling or choking grew even louder after a few seconds. It was not very difficult to figure out where this horrific noise came from.

The only thing that truly seemed out of place was the 'occupant' standing in front of the center sink. She could not find a proper reason to call it a human despite the humanoid body. It had an overly large head and pale skin. The monster was wrapped in chains that were attached to both the ceiling and ground.

This enigma had a set of massively long fingers that were completely disproportionate to its hands. These long skeletal fingers were quite literally attached to the ground, and appeared to be contributing to the beast's own ensnarement as if this aberration had sprouted from the ground like some sort of demented mandrake.

It had no eyes, nose, or ears to speak of. The only notable feature on its face aside from a pale layer of stretched skin was an open mouth and a series of extremely sharp teeth.

Hange slowly approached the monster. It gasped for air, attempting to breathe with a large chain wrapped around its neck. The monster moved and shook in all directions in order to free itself but it proved to be folly.

Hange had no desire to get too close to the monster, but she did have a strong desire to look into one of the mirrors just to satisfy an unexplained curiosity. She widened her eyes in astonishment as soon as her gaze met what should have been the same mirror that monster was looking into.

Unfortunately, there was no actual mirror to speak of; however, she did at least catch a glimpse of her reflection. Instead of seeing a large layer of rectangular glass before her, Hange was met with a wall of human eyes with the same shade of brown that her own eyes were known for. They each appeared to be about the size of her hands. While the whites of these eyes reflected Hange's image, she could see an entirely different reflection in the pupils. She struggled to see it at first, but the longer she stared at these frantically moving eyes, the more clearly she could see a clock's hands spinning rapidly around in their pupils.

A loud shriek abruptly sounded off from her right. Hange instinctively backed away from the monster; knowing full well that the scream came from that thing without so much as needing to look in that direction.

Her attention was almost instantly drawn back to the so-called 'mirror' when she noticed a strange movement either conducted by or on the wall of disembodied eyeballs. Much to her disgust, she spotted an entire wave of small black spiders crawling out from the cracks left in between each eye. The mere sight of them left a feeling of nausea in her stomach, and before she knew it, the entire world faded to the same shade of black as those horrible little arachnids.

* * *

Hange woke up on her bed in the dead of a cold night. She sat up and gasped for air as if she had just resurfaced from a pool of water. It took several minutes for Hange to realize she was sitting in her bed rather than off in some strange wonderland. A wave of relief fell upon her when it dawned on her that it was all just a dream.

For the first time since about midday yesterday, her head felt perfectly clear. She could remember everything that transpired after she consumed that mushroom, but it still felt like a mere dream. The only thing she did not remember was falling asleep. She still wore her glasses and the same set of clothing she had on the day before.

Her hair was still done up in her signature ponytail, and all of this would normally be discarded every evening before bed. She even had a certain pair of pajamas she religiously wore during the late hours of the day. She was either so exhausted that she did not bother changing into a more appropriate sleeping attire, or something else was going on yesterday.

" _Fascinating_ ," she stated in awe. "That mushroom did do something! I need to experience it again! I need to know more!"

Hange then threw herself out of bed and stood up. She was fully prepared to bolt out of her house and head straight to the backyard to try out yet another one of those 'special' mushrooms, but before she had a chance to leave her room, something of far more importance came to mind. Her stomach growled at her and she could vividly feel a headache manifesting due to a lack of proper sugar intake.

"Oh, no," she sighed. Hange placed her hands together in anticipation and looked towards the clock on her wall. "Please tell me I didn't sleep through dinner!" Unfortunately for her, this was indeed the case. She dropped her shoulders in disappointment to see the hour hand aimed directly at the number '12.'

As much as she hated the idea of waking up Eren and Grisha just so she could eat after not showing up to dinner after being invited, Hange had no choice at this point. It was not like she had anything other than those mushrooms to eat here. There was no other choice aside from either consuming those mysterious plants or starving to death. As one might expect, this mental debate had ended before it had a chance to start. Hange walked over to a pile of clothes at one corner of the room which she never got around to properly hanging up in her closet.

She dug through the pile until she came across something she rarely ever wore, but still managed to be the most familiar thing in her entire wardrobe. She pulled out a long blood red scarf she received several years ago. Hange wrapped the old thing around her neck and headed out the door.

* * *

Grisha strolled through the silent living room of the home he and Eren had occupied since his son was only five years of age. He carried a small travel bag with all of the necessary items he would need for this minor business trip. He switched off the living room light and allowed its amber hue to die out within an instant, plunging the house into a bleak darkness.

He carefully unlocked the door, making sure not to cause too much noise and wake up the whole house. Grisha then turned the cold knob and pushed open the front door. Surprisingly, he was not greeted by the bitter nighttime air as much as he was a cheerful brown haired girl with an awkward smile on her face, and her right fist in the air; signifying that she was just about to knock on the door had Grisha not opened it beforehand.

"Hello there, Mr. Yeager," Hange greeted sweetly. "I hope I'm not too terribly late for dinner." While she already knew her statement was total folly, she could not find a better way of acknowledging just how late she truly was.

Grisha glanced down to the watch on his wrist with an expressionless visage. "Only by about six hours. What happened? Eren said you were coming by. Even Armin decided to stay over for the night and we all thought you would be here as well."

Hange let out a tired groan and shook her head apologetically. "I'm sorry about this," she stated with a casual grin. "I wasn't feeling very well today and took a nap. I guess I must have overslept for some time. _Uh_ , by any chance... is there still anything left over?"

"Go on in," Grisha replied and stepped out of the way to give her a clear path inside. "Eren and Armin are already asleep so I'd recommend keeping quiet. If you decide to stay overnight then there are a few extra blankets in Eren's closet."

"Thank you," Hange cheered in a hushed voice. She then abruptly felt a wave of curiosity overtake her. She lifted an eyebrow at one unusual detail about this whole scenario. "Wait, Mr. Grisha! Why are you still up? Are you going somewhere?"

Grisha nodded his head in conformation. "As a matter of fact, I am. I'll be gone for a couple days so behave yourselves while I'm gone," he sternly ordered.

Hange gave Grisha a mocking salute and a confident wink. "No problem! We'll be just fine. I'll make sure Eren doesn't get into any trouble."

"It isn't Eren alone that I'm worried about," Grisha darkly remarked. Hange let out a light snicker at the thought of what he was implying.

"I promise you won't come back a grandfather," Hange insisted.

Grisha seemed content with her answer and gave her one final wave before started off for the road ahead. Hange then promptly skipped inside and closed the door. She stumbled towards the nearest lamp on a side table on the left side of the sofa. She switched it on, allowing light to reclaim this small amount of territory that had only seconds ago been lost to darkness.

Hange moved on through the illuminated living room and headed towards a closed off area she instantly recognized to be the kitchen. She switched on the overhead light upon entering the area which would save her from her poor choice of a diet over the course of the past two to three days. Her idea to only eat a small section of mushroom and nothing else for twelve hours, then repeating that process several times, to prove whether or not it was poisonous felt more and more like a waste of time until she finally ate the whole thing. Her mind was still reeling from the unexpected results.

She came to a stop and leaned over the sink which was in far better condition than the one at her house. She looked up to a window on the wall above the faucet. She could only see a dark reflection of herself as a result of the artificial light inside reflecting off of the glass and preventing her from seeing the outside world. Her eyes were no longer dilated. Hange pulled down her right eyelid just to make sure this was actually the case.

"Wow," she moaned in absolute awe. She placed her hands over her cheeks and slowly pulled the skin of her face downward in some weird display of disbelief. "One of those things just sent me to a whole new world. It can't be a standard narcotic and if it was poisonous I would have died already. If it was toxic then I would be puking my guts out right now, or at least I should be. Perhaps I shouldn't snack on those things, but that experience was so fascinating. It obviously altered my consciousness but I still remember everything that happened. The most vivid dream ever and I remember every last detail. There also don't seem to be any after effects, or none that I can feel at the moment."

A creepy smile took form on Hange's fazed visage. A smile that quickly transformed into a psychotic grin. Her cheeks turned a bright red when she began to consider all of the potential knowledge she could gain from this 'magical' fungus. "I can't wait for the next trial," she said with total honesty. Aspiration swelled up inside her like a tsunami of demented curiosity. "I just hope I don't run out of those things anytime soon. My backyard is the only place they seem to be growing at the moment."

* * *

Well after the sun rose the next day, Eren made his way downstairs. The Yeager house being one of the few buildings in the local area with more than one floor.

Armin followed close behind him, having fallen asleep here as opposed to traveling all the way home in the cold dead of night. The two eventually reached the living room where Eren rushed off in the direction of the kitchen, Armin was just barely able to keep up with him.

"What are planning on doing today," Armin asked for the sheer sake of sparking some form of conversation.

"Well," Eren calmly replied without breaking his stride. "I'm probably going to pay Hange a visit, and figure out why she thought it would be a good idea to make us wait for about two hours just for her to never show up for dinner. Then I'll probably stop by the..."

Armin almost bumped into Eren when he suddenly halted his stride to the kitchen and instantly fell silent when something across the room grabbed his attention. " _Wha_ ," Armin confusingly questioned before he too spotted what was causing Eren's distraction.

There on the couch was a young woman about there age wrapped in a random blanket she had taken out of Eren's closet at some point last night. Armin scratched his head in astonishment. "Looks like you don't need to go all the way out there," he remarked and pointed to girl fast asleep on the sofa.

A wrathful grin abruptly broke across Eren's face after this was said. "Hey Armin," he stated in a rather sinister tone. "Go and grab me a pan and wooden spoon from the kitchen but be as quiet as possible."

While Armin found this request to be extremely questionable he could tell by the look on Eren's face that his friend was planning something. He then promptly nodded his head and rushed off to the kitchen.

After spending a few minutes searching for the two desired items, Armin returned with a random pan and wooden spoon in hand. Eren carefully took the two utensils away from Armin and cautiously approached Hange, making sure not to disturb her sleep.

He then lifted the pan up in the air and repeatedly bashed it with the spoon until Hange jolted herself awake. She sat upright, still wrapped in that blanket which covered everything but her frightened face. She got her bearings on the situation as soon as she noticed a familiar young man looming over her.

Hange turned in his direction with a look of total disarray. That confused expression changed within no time at all. Hange gave Eren a bright smile to counter the annoyed frown on his face.

"Good morning!"


End file.
